Top 100 Albums of 1981: Slicing Up Eyeballs’ Best of the ’80s — Part 2

Today we unveil the results of Part 2 of our year-long Best of the ’80s feature, an ambitious, year-by-year poll of Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers to determine just what were the best albums of each year of the 1980s — and then, when that’s all said and done at the end of 2013, we’ll run a monster best-of-the-decade poll to hash out the overall champs.

For the 1981 poll, we received nearly 25,000 total votes naming more than 200 different albums, with the top five vote-getters more than 1,000 votes apiece. We’ve also got our first tie in the Top 10, with Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Go-Go’s earning the same number of votes to each finish No. 9.

As with our 1980 poll, there have seen a few hitches, including at least a couple regrettable omissions from the original ballot: INXS’ Underneath the Colours and The Suburbs’ Credit In Heaven, each of which received multiple write-in votes, but not enough to crack the Top 100. Finding definitive lists of albums released more than 30 years ago is proving difficult, and we’ll keep trying to improve the balloting process.

So thank you all for voting and sharing your thoughts. Take a look at the Top 100 list below — and feel free to offer your own take on the results, good or bad, in the comments below.

And stay tuned for the Best of 1982 poll, which should launch later this week.

SLICING UP EYEBALLS READERS POLL: TOP 100 ALBUMS OF 1981

1. The Cure, Faith

BACKSTORY: The third album from Robert Smith and Co., considered the middle record in the band’s early trilogy of “dark” albums. The cover art was designed by once and future guitarist Porl Thompson.SINGLES: “Primary”BAND: Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, Lol TolhurstPRODUCER: Mike Hedges and The CureBUY IT: Amazon.com (CD, digital, vinyl), iTunes (Digital)

2. Duran Duran, Duran Duran

BACKSTORY: The debut from Duran Duran hit No. 3 in the U.K., but didn’t make much of a splash in the U.S. initially; it would be reissued in the States in 1983 following the success of Rio.SINGLES: “Planet Earth,” “Careless Memories,” “Girls On Film”BAND: Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Roger Taylor, Andy TaylorPRODUCER: Colin ThurstonBUY IT: Amazon.com (CD, digital), iTunes (Digital)

6. U2, October

BACKSTORY: On their second album, the members of the pre-superstardom Irish group struck a more religious tone than on their youthful debut Boy. The album features early favorite “Gloria.”SINGLES: “Fire,” “Gloria”BAND: Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr.PRODUCER: Steve LillywhiteBUY IT: Amazon.com (CD, digital, vinyl), iTunes (Digital)

7. The Police, Ghost in the Machine

BACKSTORY: The Police began bolstering their sound with keyboards and horns on their fourth album, which spun off a trio of hit singles and went multiplatinum in the United States.SINGLES: “Invisible Sun,” “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” “Spirits in the Material World,” “Secret Journey”BAND: Sting, Andy Summers, Stewart CopelandPRODUCER: The Police and Hugh PadghamBUY IT: Amazon.com (CD, digital, vinyl), iTunes (Digital)

8. Echo & The Bunnymen, Heaven Up Here

BACKSTORY: The Bunnymen cracked the U.K. Top 10 with their second album, which was produced by Hugh Jones after musical differences led the band to dump its Crocodile producers.SINGLES: “A Promise,” “Over the Wall”BAND: Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant, Les Pattinson, Pete de FreitasPRODUCER: Hugh Jones and The BunnymenBUY IT: Amazon.com (CD, digital, vinyl), iTunes (Digital)

9. Siouxsie and the Banshees, Juju (TIE)

BACKSTORY: On their fourth album, the Banshees spotlighted John McGeoch’s guitar work and the percussion of drummer Budgie. The album peaked at No. 7 on the U.K. charts.SINGLES: “Spellbound,” “Arabian Knights’BAND: Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, Budgie, John McGeochPRODUCER: Siouxsie and the Banshees and Nigel GrayBUY IT: Amazon.com (CD, digital), iTunes (Digital)

9. The Go-Go’s, Beauty and the Beat (TIE)

BACKSTORY: The debut from The Go-Go’s features two classic New Wave singles, including “Our Lips Are Sealed,” co-written by The Specials’ Terry Hall and later recorded by his group Fun Boy Three.SINGLES: “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “We Got the Beat”BAND: Belinda Carlisle, Charlotte Caffey, Gina Schock, Kathy Valentine, Jane WiedlinPRODUCER: Rob Freeman and Richard GottehrerBUY IT: Amazon.com (CD, digital, vinyl), iTunes (Digital)

54 Comments

Nice list… glad Faith topped it out… but a few errors in the reporting.. Movement didn’t include Ceremony or In a Lonely Place… (Only on the collector’s bonus disc). Also, Porl Thompson had already been in the Cure just not recorded material… But all in all, excellent work!

Another tough year with too many great albums to limit myself to 10. (I suspect that by, say, 1987 that will no longer be the case.) Not sure how Simple Minds’ Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call beat out Black Flag’s Damaged, but I’m proud to say I voted for both.

Reading this top 10 list leads to one inescapable conclusion; 1981 was definitely the low point not only of the ’80s but of pop music history generally. Every single one of these LPs sucks(apart from the Bunnymen)

This is a good, fun project BUT…
There are, in my opinion, some serious flaws in the top ten. Chief among them is U2’s October. Sophomore slump anyone? Put Talk, Talk, Talk by the Furs in their spot. As for the rest of the top 10, well, how do I put this? Could it be that the voter’s feelings of nostalgia outweighed the actual material on the albums in question?
p.s.
I’m writing in The Suburbs’ Credit In Heaven. It’s a solid effort and it includes that song. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s the first track on the second album. It’s catchy and has a great beat. It also has really creepy, disturbing lyrics. It’s just one of those songs that’s able to make you get up and dance while seriously disturbing images parade past your mind’s eye. Thanks a lot guys, I’m still in therapy.

Some albums will be more popularity based in a poll vs. indie cred or most influential. The latter is usually decided by one person’s opinion writing for a music based website. This is the people’s choice poll.

Not including “Credit In Heaven” is a HUGE miss. One of those rare double albums that contained almost no filler. Somehow its appropriate though, as the Suburbs never got the recognition they deserved.

Seeing Duran Duran at #2 makes a long suffering Duranie such as myself quite happy. Seeing Duran Duran at #2 as a music fan makes me scratch my head a little. Don’t get me wrong their eponymous debut is magnificent but the musical landscape at the time was so vibrant I would have thought more seminal artists – such as Japan, Magazine, Simple Minds, etc – would have had a stronger showing but it’s a poll and it doesn’t change anything: 1981 remains a great year for music.

The Durans are going to be an interesting test case for this polling. The college radio station I was at played this first album, but abandoned the band overnight once their MTV silk-suits-and-sailboats heyday kicked in with “Rio.”

I think that’s the case with a number of these bands. There was a definite overlap between “college rock” and “MTV” for the first couple of years of the 1980s, but then the college stations moved off in a more esoteric direction once Men at Work, Kim Wilde, Thompson Twins, Spandau Ballet and so forth found a mass audience.

I’ll be interested to see how “Rio” fares — if it’s even on the list to be voted on — and how others perceive “college rock” as a retroactive concept, versus what college stations were, from 1982 on, actually playing. I’m not sure “Rio” and Dream Syndicate’s “Days of Wine and Roses” were on the same playlists.

The top ten didn’t surprise me much at all. A few of my picks are in it and I don’t know why anyone can get upset about a poll involving music. You like what you like and I like what I like. Having worked in record stores in the past I can tell you it’s rare to find almost everybody agreeing on a records merits.

It’s good to see Siouxsie and the Banshees so high. They were/are so underrated in general.

It’s good to see Depeche Mode as well.

Gang of Four, excellent as well.

I honestly do not think just because a “big name” released a record, it should be in the top 10. U2’s ‘October’ isn’t that great, so just because they are ‘U2′ doesn’t mean they need to be in the top 10 each time.

Some people look at polling results and say, “that’s the way it is.” I look at them and say, “this is the way it should be.”
1. The Police, Ghost in the Machine
2. The Psychedelic Furs, Talk Talk Talk
3. The Beat, Wha’ppen?
4. Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Trust
5. Echo & The Bunnymen, Heaven Up Here
6. The Gun Club, Fire of Love
7. The Go-Go’s, Beauty and the Beat
8. Pretenders, Pretenders II
9. Joe Jackson, Jumpin’ Jive
10. Tom Tom Club, Tom Tom Club

Great poll, but there should be some hard rock & heavy metal albums in there too as this was slap bang in a golden era for the genre with classic albums from Iron Maiden,Motorhead,Ozzy Osbourne,Def Leppard and others.

Interesting and fantastic project so far…well done and thank you for inviting us to participate in the process.

This will always be a popularity contest, so while artistically we may strongly disagree with U2 and The Go-Go’s occupying top-10 places over more critical masterpieces (The Sound, Comsat Angels, Kiiling Joke, etc) it’s hard to not take pleasure in the entire process and the number of like-minded music lovers out there. It’s also heartening to see Wipers, Durutti Column and Felt getting love on these polls…nice taste voters!

This truly was a golden age for popular music, and I still listen to many of these records regularly. It’s a blast to see them all in context here, remember everything that was going on at the time. We really had it good!

Juju at #9 …I guess that’s an acceptable ranking. I never listened to Faith as much as I ought to going by folks votes on this here project. Absolutely love me some Pornography though (and not just saying that cause of how it sounds, I swear!).

@Lotus – great insight and i agree. Well i thought The Gun Club would rank a lot higher. If nothing else this list shows 1981 as the start of the MTV era and the wave of synthesizer bands that followed. The next few years polls will be challenging to wade through all of it.

Thanks shibster! I know that from 1982 forward, I’m going to be a lot more circumspect in my voting, and whether I’m being drawn to sentimental favorites vs. what I recall going on in the playlists.

Interestingly, MTV eventually understood and underscored the divergence of its own playlists from those of college stations, although it took until 1986 when “120 Minutes” debuted. What was that show, but a showcase for the best of college radio?

One question to consider whenever there is a “looking back…” type of poll. How many of these albums are voted on by reputation and not their musical merit at the time of it’s release? just a question, not a criticism. While some of these albums in the top ten were not my cup of tea, I understand that each of these albums are somebody’s all-time favorite…

Oh, I agree! My question is how long they’ll continue to appear in the year-by-year polls, as after a point they really weren’t “college rock” anymore by most definitions. Will we be voting on “Notorious” in 1986, alongside “Candy Apple Grey,” “Life’s Rich Pageant,” “Bend Sinister” and “EVOL”? The mind reels.